Because, of course, there was.
"Marianne had gotten to Lyla, which is why she snapped the pic," Wolfe explained. "Making her a double-traitor. And Daph was at the center of the board, identified as the club's primary weakness and source ofgreatest emotional leverage."
I almost punched his fucking teeth from his skull.
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"Marianne set the hit on Daphne in motion, knowing we'd move to stop it so that she could cause unrest in the ranks. Her main objective was to incite a mutiny and undermine my ability to lead once it was clear Lyla was a traitor. And apparently, nothing gets our group going like a threat on Daph's life." Wolfe's tone snapped.
I sat in the quiet, the outside world humming along in disorienting spurts.
"We're too small to fight off her crew," I finally spoke. "Eventually, she'll pick us all off if we don't swear fealty."
"I know that, Threx," Wolfe muttered, scratching his knees. "The idea was to take most of us out, anyway. Fuckface decided our club was not made for assimilation."
"Ha," a ragged breath slipped from my throat. Why did that feel like a win?
"Blade and Jessie were out."
Stars smashed into my brain, and I suddenly wanted to strangle Marianne, slowly, making her eyes pop from her sockets until...
Wolfe continued, "They found you acceptable for the risk, as long as Daphne also swears fealty."
My eye twitched, and I turned to look at him.
"That will NEVER fucking happen, Wolfe." I punched the steering wheel, watching the glass over the odometer crack. "Fucking ever."
"No. It won't." Wolfe exhaled through his nose. And that's when I realized, this fucker really loved her. In his bones. Inside the rattle of his mortality, and I couldn't fully swallow it.
"What is your plan?" I asked, peering down at the marriage papers in a frozen shiver.
"I am going to meet with her tomorrow and call her out on her shit," Wolfe said. "See if we can come to an agreement that doesn't involve killing half my men and taking on collateral damage."
It was easier for him to use that term than to say Daphne. Because not even in his world of cold math did one plus one equal her death.
I grabbed the contract from the dash and arched a brow.
"And if that doesn't work?"
Darkness moved in from the north, shadowing the car in the same gray light that made everything feel wet and sticky.
"Then you know what we have to do," he said, shoving the papers clean into my chest. "But first, give her this. Give her you."
I blinked, feeling the world compress. The harsh lines of the big circle may form a cage around me, but it couldn't take this. She was finally mine.
"You want me to go with you to meet Marianne?" I asked, pushing the door open and stepping onto the sidewalk.
"No," Wolfe replied, staring out the window, the coffee in his hand going cold.
"Did you take care of the camper?" I flashed a smile.
"What do you think this is, Threx, amateur hour?" Wolfe shot me a look. "You know this might come down to you and me in negotiations? We're the ones they want."
I hated Marianne. The woman who would use drug addicts to turn tricks into profit can suffocate on her tits for all I fucking care. Drugs. Guns. Traitors. Fine. But exploitation, that shit didn't feel right to me. I knew what it meant to be starving to death, to the point you'd eat grass just to make the pain go away. And so did she. That was her weapon.
"We could break her from the inside," I leaned against the frame. "You and I broker loyalty fairly quickly, and it would save the men."
"Making us traitors."